Many coal fired power plants are now built in more discrete locations, but this one is hard to miss. Seeing a plant like this makes it hard to deny that the US and the world are facing some pretty big issues of energy and pollution. This isn’t an academic issue. Everyone who breaths is affected.

 

I recently had to pick up my sister at a ferry terminal in Bridgeport Connecticut. The Terminal was in the shadow of a large half-gigawatt power plant, fueled primarily by coal, but also by oil, during times of peak demand. This plant is one of the major power producers in Connecticut, but typical of many modern coal-fired power plants. Although built in the 1960’s, and since upgraded to a cleaner burning system, with exhaust scrubbing systems, the plant is not unlike many being used and built today in the US and elsewhere.

As I walked around the area around the plant and snapped some pictures, it really drove home the point that coal power is a major source of greenhouse gasses and some very nasty pollution which can cause health problems to many, acid rain, marine pollution and other problems. I happened to have a pocket geiger counter with me, and although I only took a few brief readings, the area around the plant was markedly higher than the background of the general area. This is due to the thorium and uranium, as well as other naturally occurring radioisotopes found in coal. In fact, the radiation released from a coal plant is much greater than that of a nuclear power plant.

As you may already know, I am very pro-nuclear energy, but regardless of the possibility of nuclear energy as a means of reducing pollution, there is is little doubt that coal plants cause some major pollution. Burning coal releases mercury, lead, soot, thorium, nitrous oxides and massive amounts of CO2. While plants now offer some systems to reduce this, it can only do so much.

The area around the plant was very obviously affected. This plant was built in a city, but more recently, coal fired plants are being built more “out of sight and out of mind.” This doesn’t actually change their environmental effects on the atmosphere, but at least less people have to see or smell it up close. And yes, when the wind blows right, you can smell it. The area around the plant seems to have less green plant growth and more of a yellow tint to the leaves. Older structures, which have been there for a while, are discolored.

Most noticeable is that a large neighborhood, which once sat downwind from the plant is not razed, with only one boarded up home remaining and old streets which criss-cross the grassy emptiness. With the plant now somewhat cleaner, there have been plans for urban renewal in the area downwind from the plant, but there have been issues due to the contamination of the area with fallout from the exhaust. Exactly who will foot the bill for the cleanup is not clear, especially since the electric company is having trouble staying afloat as is.

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Coal plants like this, and some which are even larger, burn truly massive amounts of coal. A large plant may go through a thousand tons of coal a day, under normal load. When the plant is running at peak capacity, it could be as much as forty thousand tons or more. In order to produce energy, the plant needs to receive an average of one mile-long coal train per day. In cases where the plant is operating at high capacity, as many as five or more trains may deliver coal daily. Even with high speed systems to unload each car rapidly, each train can take three or four hours to unload. This means at peak time, they may be continuously unloading coal. Plants like the one I saw recently get most of their fuel by barge, but even then, a massive barge can only last a few days. The coal stored on hand is only enough for days to a week of operation. The amount of fuel burned is truly mind boggling. And this plant is not even considered that large compared to others.

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I do not really blame the utility companies for the issues this plant, and others, cause for the enviornment and people living around them. The fact is that the US, like many countries needs more energy all the time. Currently the US relies on coal more than any other fuel for producing electricity and is building more coal power plants, not less. Coal is cheap and domestic. It can produce lots of power and in an economy where energy prices can be a huge factor, it’s having reasonably priced electricity is a must. The US is even building more coal power plants. In areas like the southwest, where electrical demand is high, utilities plan on building dozens of coal fired power plants, just to keep up with demand.

And while the US is what is mentioned here, these problems are faced by almost all industrialized nations. Around the world, new power plants are being built and many are burning coal.

But aren’t there other options? Why not use something cleaner?

Well, yes, but there are issues…

Hydro Electric: Just about all the suitable areas for hydroelectric power plants are already being used for such. There are a limited number areas where it is avalibale.

Wind/Solar: Very expensive. In fact, solar power is about the most expensive way of generating energy. While the fuel is free, the amount of space and solar cells needed to generate energy makes it astronomically expensive for grid power.

Wind power, though more economical, also requires a lot of land and cannot generate a large amount of power in most locations. For reasons going beyond the scope of this post, it’s not very realistic to consider such power generating systems to produce anything more than a small portion of needed power in the forseable future.

Natural Gas: Many of the newer plants built in the US are fired by natural gas, but they are usually only used for peak power demands. Not only is natural gas much much more expensive than coal, but supplies are not avaliable in many locations. Without a pipeline, it can be difficult to get a large enough volume of gas to produce the power necessary for the electrical grid. Furthermore, since most gas is imported from the Middle East, the supply and cost can be volatile.

And natural gas plants, though cleaner than coal plants, do produce large amounts of CO2 greenhouse gasses.

Oil: Not necessarly much cleaner than coal. More expensive. Domestic supplies are limited.

Nuclear Energy: Extremists, hippies and special interests are a major problem with getting approval for nuclear plants. Regulatory red tape, bad science, psudeo-environmentalism and people who don’t understand that nuclear energy is different than nuclear weaponry have caused major issues with the adoption.

Well.. isn’t there Clean Coal?

The coal industry loves to use the words “Clean Coal” to describe new coal generating stations. A better term might be “Somewhat less filthy coal.” A lot of nasty stuff comes out the stack from a coal burning plant, not only CO2. Systems which wash the coal before it is burned and flue gas treatment can reduce some of these things. Use of lime-based solutions can reduce sulfur in the flue gas and other chemical treatments can help with mercury, thorium and other pollutants. They do not really eliminate the problem, but do reduce the output of the most hazardous byproducts.

Other plants which are “high tech” process the coal with hydrogenation and pressure to create “coal gas” which is then burned more cleanly than solid coal. While this process can reduce the impurities in coal greatly, it also is quite expensive and requires additional energy to process the coal and operate the systems, thus reducing the efficiency of the plant. And like flue-gas treatment, it produces lots and lots of toxic waste that must be disposed of. Coal ash, flue gas treatment solutions, dirty water and lime all have to be disposed of in these systems.

And of course… even if a perfectly cleaned coal plant could be created, it would still produce lots of CO2 gas, which contributes to global warming. There have been plans to produce a prototype CO2 free coal plant, called “Futuregen” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futuregen) however this could be years away and there are many technical hurdles. The plan is to capture the CO2 gas from the burning of coal or coal-gas. But in order to do this, it must be separated from the exhaust and stored. Capturing and compressing the CO2 could take as much as 50% of the energy the plant generates and then there remains the issue of what can be done with the CO2, as well as other waste. One solution might be to inject it into old depleted natural gas deposits, but this requires more energy and transportation of the CO2 to a suitable location. There are limited geological locations. Another option would be to pump it into the deep ocean, so that it would be dissolved in ocean water and eventually processed by plankton, but this option could have severe consequences on the ph and general chemistry of ocean water and cause major problems to aquatic life.
And don’t forget that burning thousands of tons of coal means thousands of tons of CO2. It’s a lot to get rid of. At best, it looks like coal power plants may be able to reduce some of the soot, mercury and sulfur released. (Not eliminate, but reduce) Making for a somewhat less filthy power source that produces less exhaust waste, but more solid and liquid waste.

In closing, I’d simply like to point out one thing: There is a nuclear power plant in Connecticut as well, which produces about three times as much energy as this coal plant. It has operated for three decades and the biggest problem it faces, like all nuclear plants, is how the waste will be disposed of. The waste from it’s lifetime of operation is stored in a concrete building on site. The waste from this coal plant, however, is not something that needs to find a home. It is not stored on site, but rather has already been released into the enviornment. Millions of tons of CO2, sulfur, mercury and other chemicals have gone up the stack of this plant in it’s lifetime, and billions more at many other plants. Consider the all the implications of power sources…

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futuregen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_plant

http://www.sterling-energy.com/power-generation-projects.htm

http://www.pseg.com/companies/fossil/plants/bridgeport.jsp

http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/cleancoal

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/8208/8208coal.html

http://onemilliondollarsforpreservation.com/2006/11/07/case-in-point-steel-point-bridgeport-ct.aspx

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 5:46 pm and is filed under Education, Good Science, Misc, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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